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How can we refute the assertion, “The more we own, the more freedom we have��?

We wake up freer when our quantity of clothes and shoes increases each and every day.

We are also free when we struggle to choose our 185 basic necessities from among those 40,000 products in the supermarket.

When our doctor offers us multiple options for treatment, we are also free to select the less risky one.

During the day, we generally have our laptop on one hand and our smart phone on the other, trying to deal with countless e-mails, phone calls and social media messages.
We seem free, but are we happy? In this world of free choices, are we able to really live in the moment?

Day after day we can watch ourselves turning into someone with more things but less happiness.

I call it “Choice Obesity��, this never-ending obligation to make choices along with the unhappiness that comes from increasing consumption. Considering the similarities in definition and results, don’t you also think that it is as dangerous as obesity?

There are plenty of studies on the science of happiness (or some call it positive psychology. Some conclude that past meeting are basic needs, the acquiring of things (and you could call choices things) does not lead people to have happier and more satisfying lives. For me I try to focus on meaningful activities. Are activities things?

Daniel Gilbert has written about this kind of psychology.

@Burc - For the "Choice Obesity", you can look at works of Barry Schwartz, and his famous book "The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less". Schwartz’s work poses a serious challenge to the notion that more choice brings about more freedom, and more freedom brings about more happiness.

Even though little bit-old, but it has too much resemblance with current world, where we need to make choice for nearly everything.

Steven wrote: "There are plenty of studies on the science of happiness (or some call it positive psychology. Some conclude that past meeting are basic needs, the acquiring of things (and you could call choices th..."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the most prominent positive psychologyst) wrote Flow , where he states how to turn everyday experience into a moment by moment opportunity for joy and self-fulfillment.